Ann Napolitano

From the New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward comes an emotionally layered and engrossing story of a family that asks: Can love make a broken person whole? William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So it’s a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three younger sisters: Sylvie, the dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book and imagines a future different from the expected path of wife and mother; Cecelia, the family’s artist; and Emeline, who patiently takes care of all of them. Happily, the Padavanos fold Julia’s new boyfriend into their loving, chaotic household. But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable loyalty to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most? Vibrating with tenderness, Hello Beautiful is a gorgeous, profoundly moving portrait of what’s possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.

A Novel

Hello Beautiful

Victoria Justice

"The tradegy isn't the point", she said. "We read those books today because the romance is so enormous and true that we can't look away. It's not obliteration; it's a kind of expanding, I think. If I'm lucky enough to know love like that..." She went quiet, unable to put into words how meaningful this would be.

The dream was now in the air, at risk of the elements, beyond her grasp.

Deep love between two people was a private, wordless endeavor, and to place the lovers in fancy clothes in front of a crowd seemed antithetical to the nature of the thing. No one could see love - this was what Sylvie believed, anyway. It was an internal state. Watching that moment between two lovers felt wrong to her, almost blasphemous.

It occurred to him, for the first time, that just because you never thought about someone didn't mean they weren't inside you.

"You're depressed, not crazy. It's not insane to be depressed in this world. It's more sane than being happy. I never trust those upbeat individuals who grin no matter what's going on. Those are the ones with a screw loose, if you ask me."

When your love for a person is so profound that it's part of who you are, then the absence of the person becomes part of your DNA, your bones, and your skin.

"I think sometimes" - now it was his turn to pause - "we need another pair of eyes. We need the people around us."

mara henderson

For William, it was something he worked on because there was a silence inside him that sometimes frightened him.

Hello Beautiful quotes

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